My Final Time
by Julie Poe
Summary: The thoughts of a Nazgul as the ring is destroyed, and the punishment he faces.


It is gone. The Ring is gone.

I knew it was gone the moment I began to feel a horribly painful warmth in my chest. My body told me I was free from my torment, my damned soul told me I was about to perish.

The coldness that had so long rested upon me was now lifting. I shivered uncontrollably as the winged creature that carried me screeched out in mortal terror and flew desperately towards the only home it had ever known.

I cried out suddenly as I felt light for the first time in nearly five millennia. I tried to shield myself from the light, and in doing so, lost control of my steed and plunged to the ground several hundred metres below.

I could hear, as I had never heard before, the screams of Orcs and Trolls as I fell, and could see the scattering figures, slowly growing more colourful as I plummeted towards the earth. I could suddenly see grey, red, and gold. No longer was my eyesight limited to shades of white, blue, and black. I was becoming a mortal for my final time.

My hearing sharpened further still, and I felt the first painful beat of my long, dead heart. I cried out in pain, and realized my voice was no longer the high-pitched scream of a tormented, wraith soul, but the hoarse ancient cry of a man, over four thousand years old. The heart began to beat, fast and faster still, and I knew I was terrified.

My terrifying fall seemed to slow; it was as if fate wished for me to be completely human when I met my end. Suddenly my gauntlets felt too tight, for flesh was forming beneath them. Blood began to leak through the gaps in the metal at the joints. My hands were too big for the gauntlets that had long encased barely tangible hands and digits of shadow.

As the ground grew closer, I could feel skin completely encase my being. Other organs formed, and bones blossomed out of shadow.

_Bones formed for the sake of breaking_, I mused bitterly. A scraggly lock of salt white hair fell in my face, which I brushed away with bleeding fingers. The pain was growing more intense, with every rapid beat of my heart. But, as I fell, I realized it was not only physical pain that ailed me. It was white-hot pain within my soul.

I was an evil creature, and for every moment I spent praising and toiling in the name of my lord Sauron, and his cursed Ring that had long dictated my thoughts and actions, an intense wave of spiritual agony crashed into my twisted soul.

My breathing grew rapid, as the ground, black with the blood of mindless Orcs, grew ever closer. Every ounce of my conviction was used not to weep for myself, or to beg for forgiveness. My pride, which had always been my downfall, would not allow me otherwise.

_You're a fool!_ I cursed myself for my pride. _Just a corrupted fool-_ I stopped amidst my scoffs, for I could not remember my own name. I had long forgotten the name my poor mother had given me.

_Who am I?_ I could not help but wonder.

As the ground flies up before me though, I now know who I am.

I am a nameless, helpless, hopeless, shameful, prideful, corrupted, and cursed mortal now moments away from death without a friend, lover, or master in the whole cursed world of Arda. I am alone, and I am afraid.

The final time I touch the earth is upon me. I cannot stop the scream of pure agony that explodes from my mortal lips as every single bone in my legs and arms shatter upon impact. The sickening crunch resounds through the air, harmonizing with my human screams. My vision goes completely white, then turns a dark crimson.

My ribs fracture, and I feel more than one of them pierce my lungs. Blood forces its way up my throat, choking me. My mouth opens to scream again, but only the quiet, gurgling sounds of a dying man come forth, as well as the blood that chokes me.

I fall forward now, my ancient, wrinkled cheek resting against the bloodstained ground. The coolness of my own blood somehow calms me; I suppose I am accustomed to and comforted by the coldness.

The world is fading now before my eyes. My pain dims to a low throb, and then, once more, I am numb. I am now as I once was as a Nazgûl. No. Not as a Nazgûl, for as such I was a creature whose name chilled the hearts of men. As a Nazgûl, I was a fearful warrior; every foe I had faced had ever claimed victory over me. Now, I am a pathetic old mortal, who has seen over four thousand eight hundred years pass by. I am a dying man, fallen from evil glory, and even longer fallen from the grace of goodness.

That is my punishment. To die a shattered mortal, to suffer as much agony and heartache that I have caused; that is the penalty for my crimes. And as my vision swirls away into complete blackness, and my soul flees to the emptiest and blackest corner of Eä, I know that I fully deserve my shameful sentence.


End file.
